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Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Creating words

You've created your world. You've brought a supernatural being onto the page. And sometimes they require their own language. A few words here and there. Curses, exclamations, incantations... Those words they'd fall back on when English just doesn't do them justice.

For the most part, I enjoy creating words in my being's native tongue. But sometimes, it takes a while for just the right letter and vowel combinations to come together. It's got to sound right. It's got to read right. You know?

How do I find 'new' words?

Um, I read things backwards. I've done this since I was a child. Specifically, I read road signs backwards (after, of course, I read them properly otherwise I'b be lost all the time). Towns, cities, road names, whatever is out there. The ones I see on my regular journeys, I bypass b/c, you know, I've already read them. Sometimes, all it takes is a change of one letter or vowel. I've come up with some cool, 'off-world' sounding words by doing this.

This weird childhood travelling pastime has led to me randomly reading things backwards. A word flashed on the TV, a word on the cover of a book, menus, whatever strikes me. . . (For instance, yesterday I spelled the word 'gulp' backwards in my head after the Hub used the word, and I realized it spelled 'plug'. I love it when that happens!).

Other things I've done is going through foreign language dictionaries, name databases, and my latest kick -- those verification codes you have to enter in blogger and other online forms. Yeah. Loads of possibilities there. :D

That is just too cool. It seems like I've always turned words around, just for fun. I actually had to stop reading a book when I noticed in the first chapter that the villain's name was Krej. Yeah, I got that and it bugged me as really lazy writing.

On a cool side note, there is a very tiny town in western Colorado a couple hours from where I live called Egnar. Range backward. :)